How to Hire a Customer Service Representative

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Does your growing business need a customer service representative? 

Understanding the steps behind hiring a customer service representative, including data about candidates looking for customer service representative jobs, salaries, and key terms to include in your job description, can help you stand out from the competition to reach, attract and hire quality candidates.

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Ready to get started?

Post a Job
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Our mission

Indeed’s Employer Resource Library helps businesses grow and manage their workforce. With over 15,000 articles in 6 languages, we offer tactical advice, how-tos and best practices to help businesses hire and retain great employees.

Read our editorial guidelines

Customer Service Representative: What is the cost of hiring?

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Why hire a customer service representative?

A customer service representative helps to resolve customer issues and answer queries to increase customer satisfaction. A dedicated customer representative can also help in boosting sales by upselling services to customers.

Contributions of a great customer service representative:

  • Handle a large volume of customer queries
  • Identify sales opportunities and upsell products or services
  • Reduce customer churn and attract new customers
  • Improve the efficiency of customer service operations

Deciding between a full-time vs freelance customer service representative

Hiring a freelance customer service representative can be a good option for a business starting out or with fluctuating customer service needs. Freelancers can be hired on a project-by-project basis, which can be more cost-effective than hiring a full-time employee. Also, freelance customer service representatives often have a range of skills and expertise that can be useful for handling various customer service tasks.

On the other hand, hiring a full-time customer service representative can be a viable alternative for a business with consistent customer service needs or wanting to build a dedicated customer service team. Full-time employees are typically more invested in the business’s success and may be more reliable and committed to their work. In addition, a full-time employee can be trained to handle a broader range of customer service tasks and provide more in-depth customer support. However, you will need to pay them a regular salary and provide them additional benefits like allowances and insurance.

What are the different types of customer service representatives?

There are several types of customer service representatives depending on their industry and mode of communication:

  • Phone-based customer service representatives: These representatives handle customer inquiries and issues over the phone.
  • Chat-based customer service representatives: They are responsible for handling customer inquiries and issues through live chat on a website or an app.
  • Technical support representatives: Technical support representatives attend to customer inquiries and issues related to technical products or services.
  • Billing and account support representatives: They handle customer inquiries and billing and account management issues.
  • Social media customer service representatives: These representatives handle customer inquiries and issues through social media channels.

Where to find a customer service representative?

You can try various strategies to find the right customer service representative for your business. Here are some of them:

To find the right customer service representative for your business, try different recruiting strategies like:

  • Post flyers: Posting flyers is a great way to inform the community about the vacancy so that you can attract candidates for the position of customer service representative.
  • Use a staffing agency: A staffing agency can help you find qualified candidates for your customer service team. They will handle the recruitment process and can provide temporary or permanent employees as needed.
  • Ask current employees for referrals: You can ask current employees to refer qualified candidates for the customer service position. This can be a good option as your employees will likely refer candidates who align with the company culture.
  • Offer internships: You can offer internships to students who are interested in customer service as a career. These interns can later be hired as permanent employees.

Post your job online: Try posting your customer service representative job on Indeed to find and attract quality customer service representative candidates.

Skills to look for in a great customer service representative

A great customer service representative candidate will have the following skills, attributes, and work experience that reflects:

  • Strong communication skills
  • Patience and empathy while handling customer queries
  • Problem-solving skills
  • Adaptability and flexibility
  • Thorough knowledge of the company’s product or service

Writing a customer service representative job description

A thoughtful job description is critical to finding qualified customer service representative candidates. A customer service representative job description includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities, and the preferred skills for the position.

When writing your job description for a customer service representative, consider including some or all of the following keywords to strengthen the visibility of your job posting. According to Indeed data, these are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on customer service representative jobs:

  • Fresher
  • Customer service representative
  • BPO
  • 12th pass
  • Freshers job vacancy
  • Customer service
  • Call center
  • Airport ground staff
  • Airport
  • Tech Mahindra

Interviewing customer service representative candidates

Strong candidates for customer service representative positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

  • Dealing with difficult customers
  • Handling a large volume of customer queries
  • Staying updated on the company’s latest products or services
  • Building customer loyalty
  • Handling sensitive information

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of customer service representative interview questions for examples (with sample answers).

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FAQs about how to hire a customer service representative

Indeed’s Employer Resource Library helps businesses grow and manage their workforce. With over 15,000 articles in 6 languages, we offer tactical advice, how-tos and best practices to help businesses hire and retain great employees.